Moscow-based
antivirus software makerKaspersky
Lab said on Wednesday that its security software had taken source code for a
secret American hacking tool from a personal computer in the United States.

In
September, US officials ordered Kaspersky's products removed from
government computers, saying the firm was vulnerable to Kremlin influence and
that using the software could jeopardise national security.

After
that announcement, the Wall Street Journal reported on October 5 that hackers
working for the Russian government appeared to have targeted a National
Security Agency (NSA) worker by using Kaspersky software to identify classified
files in 2015. The New York Times reported on October 10 that Israeli officials
reported the operation to the United States after they hacked into Kaspersky's
network.

The
Russian government has denied any involvement.

Kaspersky
began an internal inquiry in a bid to restore trust. On Wednesday, it said it
had stumbled on the code in 2014 when the consumer version of its popular
software flagged a zip file as malicious on a US computer.

While
reviewing the file's contents, a Kaspersky analyst discovered it contained the
source code for a hacking tool later attributed to what Kaspersky calls the
Equation Group. The software removed the file and the analyst reported the
matter to Chief Executive Eugene Kaspersky, who ordered that the copy of the
code be destroyed, the company said.

Kaspersky
said it assumed the 2014 source code episode was connected to the NSA's loss of
files described in media reports.

"We
deleted the archive because we don't need the source code to improve our
protection technologies and because of concerns regarding the handling of
classified materials," said Kaspersky spokeswoman Sarah Kitsos.

Source
code, which is normally hidden and gives instructions to computers, would have
posed no danger to the Kaspersky customer.

Former
employees told Reuters in July that the company had on rare occasions removed
uninfected files. Kaspersky spokeswoman Yuliya Shlychkova on Wednesday said
removals of such uninfected material happen "extremely rarely."

Kaspersky
said no third parties saw the code, though the media reports said the spy tool
had ended up in the hands of the Russian government.

Kaspersky
denied the Journal's report that its programs searched for keywords including
"top secret."

The
company said it found no evidence that it had been hacked by Russian spies or
anyone except the Israelis, though it suggested others could have obtained the
tools by hacking into the American's computer through a back door it later
spotted there.

The
NSA declined to comment on Kaspersky's review.

The
new 2014 date of the incident is of interest because Kaspersky only announced
its discovery of an espionage campaign by the Equation Group in February 2015.
At that time, Reuters cited former NSA employees who said that Equation Group
was an NSA project.

Kaspersky's
Equation Group report was one of its most celebrated findings, since it
indicated that the group could infect firmware on most computers. That gave the
NSA almost undetectable presence.

Shlychkova
said the American machine's files were found before the big Equation Group
announcement but after Kaspersky had discovered Equation software on a machine
in the Middle East. She said that occurred in March 2014.

Democratic
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who led calls in the US Congress to purge
Kaspersky products from federal government networks, on Wednesday sent a letter
to DHS acting Secretary Elaine Duke and Director of National Intelligence Dan
Coats, urging the US government to declassify information about Kaspersky
products.

The
step was necessary, Shaheen wrote, "to allow the American people to make
informed decisions about risks to their privacy and security."

Also
on Tuesday, Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill sent a separate letter to DHS
asking what was being done to ensure federal agencies were complying with the
ban on Kaspersky products.

Kaspersky's
consumer anti-virus software has won high marks from reviewers.

The
company said Monday it would submit the source code of its software and future
updates for inspection by independent parties.

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